


the friends & family discount

by jonesandashes, pollyrepeat



Category: Jurassic Park (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:22:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonesandashes/pseuds/jonesandashes, https://archiveofourown.org/users/pollyrepeat/pseuds/pollyrepeat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s going to meet the whole set, Billy realizes. All these important “we go waaaaaay back” Alan people, in the span of one road trip. And all it took was almost being eaten by dinosaurs a few times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the friends & family discount

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SadieFlood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SadieFlood/gifts).



They land in San Diego at one in the morning, exhausted and, in Billy’s case, depressingly battered. There’s a tall man waiting for them in arrivals, wide awake and arms crossed, foot tapping with what might be impatience or trepidation. Alan is pressed so close to Billy’s side that Billy feels more than sees the way his muscles tense up, hidden underneath a soft flannel shirt that’s seen better days.

“Dr Grant,” the man says. Beside Billy, one hand still wrapped tight around his elbow, Alan heaves a huge, exasperated sigh.

“Malcolm. I assume that Ellie called you?”

“Did you really expect anything different,” Malcolm -- oh, wait, wait, Billy knows this, _Ian Malcolm_ \-- says, not quite a question. “Welcome to San Diego. Welcome to the Frequent Jurassic Flyer club.”

“You’ll notice I didn’t bring a sideshow _back_ with me,” Alan says, mild and reproachful, but some of the tension is bleeding out of him. Malcolm’s laugh is much, much more alarming than anything Alan ever described, and in the too-bright fluorescents of the airport, too-tall, too-looming Ian Malcolm is kind of too much.

That might be the painkillers talking, but Alan shakes his head, slowly, beside him, so maybe it’s not.

Billy lets himself be ushered out of the airport and into a waiting car, where Alan pats his shoulder carefully and then leaves again without saying anything. Malcolm slides into the driver's seat five minutes later, and turns halfway around in the seat so that he’s leaning against the window and staring at Billy, in the back seat.

“Dr Brennan, right?” Malcolm says. There’s something sly in his expression, but it might just be that the man defaults to looking like he’s about to make a wry joke or three.

“Mr Brennan, actually,” Billy says, thinking regretfully of the mess of his dissertation, which hasn’t been touched in nearly five weeks. He’s pretty sure he can keep writing it without wanting to throw up for anything but the usual reasons. He, specifically, has not been traumatized by velociraptor vocalizations. _The Birds_ has probably been ruined forever, though.

Malcolm opens his mouth like he has something else to say, eyes mostly hidden behind tinted glasses, but Alan looms abruptly out of the fluorescent darkness and slams into the car with the edge of the luggage cart, and Malcolm squawks instead.

“Whoops,” Alan says, shameless.

//

There is a gentle knocking on the hotel door. Billy’s already up to fiddle with the tiny coffee machine, so he hobbles over. The man from the front desk is standing in their hallway.

“Dr Alan Grant?” he says.

“Uh, yeah. Alan!”

“What,” Alan says, otherwise not moving from where he’s sprawled on the bed. 

“I have been instructed to ask you to please answer your phone.”

On cue, the phone on the bedside table jingles. Alan frowns at them over his newspaper, and then stretches over to pluck up the receiver. 

“Hello,” he says, slowly. “Hi, Ellie.”

The front desk guy leaves.

“I’m not ignoring anybody,” Alan says. “No, no. For you I would have answered the phone. I was in the shower.” A pause. “Everybody was in the shower. Yeah, he’s here. He’s good.”

Billy gives up on the coffee maker and slides onto the bed beside him. “Drumheller,” Alan says. “We will. I’ll let you know when we’re passing through, probably just a weekend once we hit Montana. Maybe two weeks from now?” He glances at Billy, who nods. “Okay. Say hi to the munchkins for me.”

This is met with a tinny shrieking of small children in the background. Alan smirks, and says goodbye. 

“Checking up on you?” Billy says. 

“I may never live this down,” Alan says, solemn.

“Maybe not,” Billy says. “I’m sure Ellie will let it go eventually.”

“ _Ellie_ might,” Alan replies.

//

"Has someone let fly some kind of bat signal?" Billy wonders, later, in San Francisco. Their lazy road-trip up the coast has been interrupted by a polite summons to the edges of Silicon Valley via an email sent to Billy’s personal account. This is theoretically reasonable, because Alan is still allergic to the concepts of emails and laptops and avoids them whenever possible. It is also theoretically unnerving, because only a tiny handful of people know that Billy’s guilt-induced feats of near-death heroism have convinced notoriously vacation allergic Alan Grant to wear short sleeves and sit still for a whole thirty minutes on the beach and generally stay in close enough quarters that Billy can obtain said emailed request and receive and relay Alan’s input with little to no delay.

Alan puts his glass down to point an accusing finger. "This was not my idea."

No, Billy thinks, of course it wasn’t. He tries to imagine a world wherein Alan Grant introduces him to his old friends, on purpose, unprompted by near-death situations, and comes up empty. It’s probably the same world in which Alan Grant grins at people with all his teeth and makes terrifying amounts of eye contact while inquiring after the state of their love lives exclusively through hip slang and innuendo.

Billy abruptly realizes the person he is thinking of already exists and is named Dr Ian Malcolm and wow, no, he is putting a stop to this mental exercise immediately, right now.

Dinner with Lex Murphy is at an upscale reservations-only type place. Lex has beaten them there, and gets up from the table to shake both their hands. She's wearing a simple black dress and an air of someone who is very comfortable in both her own skin and upscale reservations-only type places. Billy remembers being in his early twenties and spending a lot of time drinking beer upside down in people’s basements, but then again, he hadn’t been chased by dinosaurs at that point in his life. He imagines it’s a sobering experience regardless of age.

Lex informs Billy that she and Alan go way back and also that she can ruin Billy’s credit score and his social life with only a few clicks of her mouse. Alan, off seeking out the washroom, does not appear with a luggage cart to forcefully steer the conversation in a different direction.

“...Okay,” Billy says, instead.

“I’m kidding, Billy,” Lex says, and she leans back in her seat, apparently satisfied. She says she’s glad he wasn’t eaten by pterodactyls, and for the rest of the evening does not casually mention further ways she could effortlessly devastate his life. She gives him her phone number and tells Billy not to hesitate to call if he needs anything.

//

They’re intercepted by Tim Murphy in Salt Lake City. He calls the morning before they’re going to pass through. He calls Billy.

“I figured Dr Grant would be driving,” he explains. 

“He is,” Billy says, thinking, _oh god they really are all networked_. He’s going to meet the whole set, he realizes. All these important “we go waaaaaay back” Alan people, in the span of one road trip. And all it took was almost being eaten by dinosaurs a few times.

Tim’s got a week left in his summer internship at the Natural History Museum of Utah, and Billy surprises himself by suggesting they meet up there.

“Sure,” Tim says, and then they chat comfortably about dinosaurs for a few minutes.

Alan zeroes in on Tim the moment he enters the Museum cafe - eight minutes after the arranged time, museum tour guide vest draped over his arm - and waves him down. Alan makes the introductions, so the introductions consist of “Billy. Tim.” accompanied by pointing. 

Tim doesn’t bother hiding his relief that that Alan is okay (and, with an immediate, no-strings-attached sincerity that Billy finds incredibly endearing, relief that Billy is okay too). He also doesn’t bother hiding his annoyance that Alan went to an island full of dinosaurs (AGAIN, he says, more than once).

“I am aware,” Alan says, when Tim pauses for breath, “that it was not the best idea. But I will remind you, I was lured there under false circumstances.”

Tim narrows his eyes. A look of muted alarm crosses Alan’s face, and Billy realizes that this was the wrong explanation to give a moment before Tim asks,

“And what circumstances were those?”

“Certain…” Alan gestures vaguely, “benefits.”

“We rescued a kid,” Billy offers, because that sounds way better than, _we went for dig money and were tricked into rescuing teenagers instead_. 

“Billy rescued a kid,” Alan immediately repeats. “His name is Eric.”

“Do you want his number for the network,” Billy jokes.

“No, that’s okay,” Tim says seriously. “Kelly was going to call him.”

Billy stares at him. 

“Kelly Malcolm,” Alan clarifies. He doesn’t sound surprised.

“That’s Ian Malcolm’s daughter,” Tim adds.

“Ah,” says Billy, like he doesn’t already know exactly who “Kelly” is in the context of dinosaur theme parks. Like half the world didn’t know that.

Eric had stopped by Billy’s hospital room in Cuba a couple of times, in between reconnecting with his parents and being prodded by doctors. It was nice. Eric had thanked Billy for saving his life at some point early on. Billy doesn’t remember terribly much about that part, but no doubt it involved Eric’s wide, earnest eyes and habit of undiluted, unselfconscious sincerity. Billy hopes this is a tic of Eric’s character, that they didn’t just leave behind some teenager’s awkward sense of humour back on Isla Sorna with the bodies and the dinosaurs and parachutes of fun step-parents caught in trees. Billy should call him too, he thinks.

“Good,” Billy says, and means it. He’s just not sure what this means in terms of- he’s not even sure what to call this anymore. Meeting Alan’s old friends? Joining the Jurassic fallout club? Alan nods absently. Tim shrugs.

//

Alan cuts straight across the lawn of the Museum of the Rockies and passes under the shadow of Big Mike, tipping his hat absent-mindedly in its direction with the air of someone who has done so a thousand times before. This makes sense to Billy, that Alan is the type of guy to nod respectfully at a replica T-Rex, and cast gentle, unflinching aspersions on a man’s character not ten minutes later.

Alan tends to acquire long-standing professional feuds less through personal prickliness, and more through a deep-set unwillingness to humour anyone. he’s earned a well-respected reputation the same way; when the dust settles after his peer reviews, he has usually made either a great friend or great enemy.

The latter is waiting for them in Montana. The finer nuances of mutual disdain are mostly missed by Billy, who chose the firmer footing offered by the sidewalk and is still a half-dozen steps behind, more than enough time for Alan to begin the work of dismantling someone.

“I’m glad we understand one another,” Alan is saying, as Billy catches up and leans against the ticket desk. Dr Schor is already making a face like he’s swallowed something bitter. Ha! Ha! Classic Alan.

Alan shoots a look at him like he can tell what Billy’s thinking, and Billy busies himself with neatening the stack of pamphlets on the counter, doing his best impression of a graduate student executing option 3b from the _Oh God Academia_ handbook: “Conflict? What conflict? I am pretending to be blissfully ignorant of all departmental in-fighting.” 

MOR is quieter after the shift to winter hours, the tourists and kids long since shooed out by the 5PM close, but there are still a handful of employees drifting through the entrance, drawn inexorably in by Alan’s arrival. Alan is kind of a celebrity, though Billy knows Alan’s relationship with notoriety is ... fraught.

Before they leave Billy is cornered by a gaggle of grad students at the water fountain - he’s alone when he stiffly leans over, and when he straightens up again there they all are. It occurs to him that he might have a relationship with celebrity to negotiate now too.

“So what was it…” one of them begins, but loses her nerve partway through. “What was, uh, your dissertation about?” she finishes instead. The others look disappointed.

They stay the rest of the afternoon, and on their way out pause under Big Mike’s shadow again. 

“Beautiful,” says Billy. It is, too. 15 feet tall, 36 feet long. For a few years in the 90s, MOR 555 was the largest, most complete T. rex specimen on the scene. 

He thought the flesh and blood versions were beautiful too. He did even when he was wet and cold. Even when his heart was hammering in his chest and he couldn’t come up for air because they knew he was there and were looking for him. 

And he still does, he thinks. 

“Is that crazy?” he says, and laughs a little. It has to be a little bit nuts. He still breaks out in sweats and tremors sometimes. His knee’s gotten a lot better, but it’s held together with pins. He wakes up in the middle of the night, whole body coiled tight, and muscles sore from tension the next morning.

Alan gives him a sidelong glance, nudging Billy’s shoulder with his own. “Nah,” he says. “Nah, you’re alright.”

Alan wanders back toward the car, and Billy follows. They tip their hats.

“You know,” Alan says, later that night, pressed up beside Billy underneath scratchy motel sheets, “I haven’t actually met any of _your_ friends, either.”

“You’ve met my academic supervisor,” Billy says. “I talk to her more often than half my friends.” 

“Still,” says Alan, and Billy thinks about the last couple of months and says, “Yeah, okay.”

//

Southern Alberta’s coasting through the last summer dregs of a heat wave when they arrive, and they pull over in the hoodoos to stretch their legs. What Billy would really like is to hike up to the top of one of the hills, but the last time he tried stairs he had to take a breather on the second floor landing. They sit by the side of the road, instead, and soak up some sun. Billy tries not to feel nervous.

“Shall we?” says Alan, after a while.

Ellie Sattler’s currently doing some research with the U of Alberta’s paleobotanical collection, but she drives out to meet them at the Royal Tyrrell, and all three of them stand under Black Beauty. Billy feels a little bit like he’s meeting a celebrity, both because she’s kind of a giant in her field and also because she looms large in so many of Alan’s stories. “I have heard,” says Billy, “so much about you.”

“Likewise,” she says. She doesn’t look at Alan -- she keeps her eyes locked right on Billy. Her grin is blinding.

“Good things, I hope,” Billy says, a little startled and hopefully not too obviously pleased.

“Oh yes,” she says, and shakes his hand. “All good things.”

“It’s great to finally meet you,” Billy says, and _does_ look at Alan, whose answering smile at Billy more than matches Ellie’s in its intensity.


End file.
